Frank Salzgeber, Head of Technology Transfer Programme at European Space Agency:

New quality weather informaton is becoming more and more important nowadays as we see by requests from all over the world and different customer groups. We are extremely proud of having incubated award-winning WxFUSION in one of our ESA Business Incubaton Centers (ESA BIC Oberpfaffenhofen), a shooting star amongst our innovatve startups materializing on satellite earth observaton and other data for new applicatons in terrestrial markets.

“…WxFUSION is a spin-off of our DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics, providing unequaled thunderstorm detection and nowcasting services – the key to safer flying – combined with enhanced commercial efficiency for airlines, airports and air navigation service providers.
It is an integral part of DLR’s policy to bring our world-leading research results and technical expertise into market driven use cases and thereby create mutual benefits for customers as well as the society. We are closely collaborating with WxFUSION – including the core technology transferred from DLR to WxFUSION – to fully meet the demands in flight weather forecasting to foster the company’s powerful access to the global marketplace. We strongly appreciate the professional commitment and passion of the founders of WxFUSION to turn T-storm information into a known and controllable factor for aviation – in a local and a worldwide scale…”

German Air Navigation Services DFS use Rad-TRAM analyses and nowcasts in their weather information display ‘METFROG’ for gaining awareness of the thunderstorm situation over Germany. METFROG is currently installed at 2 control centres and will be rolled out to the remaing 3 by mid 2014.

The German Weather Service (DWD) has been running Rad-TRAM operationally since July 2013 with output provided to the German Air Navigation Services (DFS), Munich Airport Operations (FMG) and Lufthansa Hub Operations Center (HOC).

Munich Airport Operations made use of AutoAlert thunderstorm warnings provided by WxFUSION during the summer months of 2013 and will continue to do so in 2014.

For the past 35 years, Kaltenberg (Bavaria) has hosted the renowned medieval festival and its great Knights’ Tournament. Since 2014, the organizers are relying on WxFUSION’s AutoAlert e-mail system for timely warnings about approaching thunderstorms. Throughout the three tournament weekends every year, the organizers receive automatic e-mail alerts to facilitate their advanced planning.

This year’s (2014) DLR innovation prize has been awarded to DLR researchers Dr. Caroline Forster and Dr. Arnold Tafferner by the Association of Friends of the DLR. In doing so, the Association followed the recommendation of the DLR executive board.